The 2004 Selected Archive News Stories from Krakow
Info

Year 2004 in News from Krakow Info

Fly Cheap
SkyEurope opens cheap air connections between
Krakow
and London (Stansted), Rome (Fiumicino), Paris (Orly
Sud), Amsterdam and Milan by the end of September.
It believes they will entice some 200,000 passengers
a year. Other no-frills carrier, British EasyJet, is
to fly daily from Krakow to London and Germany’s
Dortmund from late October. It’s just for starters
since the airline wants to launch regular
air connection
to Berlin in January and later on to other European
capitals. It hopes its ticket prices starting from
euro 19 for a one-way trip will lure 80,000
passengers per year to each destination. Two other
budget airlines, Italy’s Volareweb and Germany’s
Germanwings, have already launched
flights
from
Krakow airport to Rome and Cologne/Bonn
respectively.

Krakow Airport to Double Its Capacity
Krakow’s Balice international airport has
secured grants from EU and Poland’s Ministry of
Infrastructure to the tune of $3 million and $1.1
respectively for extension of its passenger
terminal. Its construction, scheduled to start this
September, is to be finished by next April. Once
operational the enlarged terminal, with its floor
space almost doubled to 18,000 sq. m from current
10,000 sq. m, will be able to handle two million
passengers per year. Last year it received some
600,000 of them.

Czeslaw Milosz Dies at 93
Great Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz has died at 93 in
Krakow on August 14. The winner of the 1980 Nobel
Prize in Literature was both the honorary and the
actual citizen of Krakow.

Late Poet Czeslaw Milosz Honored With a Tomb In the
Skalka Sanctuary
Great Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz, the winner of the
1980 Nobel Prize in Literature, has been laid to
rest in Krakow’s
Skalka Sanctuary’s crypt alongside a
handful of other Poland’s luminaries that deserved
the honor. The Skalka crypt is the country’s second
most prestigious burial ground after the nearby
Wawel Cathedral where the Polish royalty and the
greatest national heroes have their tombs. Czeslaw
Milosz died at 93 on August 14. He was both the
honorary and the actual citizen of Krakow.

Krakow’s Robert Korzeniowski Confirms His Supremacy
Krakow’s athlete Robert Korzeniowski has won in Athens
his third Olympic gold in row in the 50-kilometer
walk. In sum he is owner of four Olympic gold
medals, the fourth one for prevailing in the
20-kilometer walk in the 2000 Games in Sydney.

Krakow’s Square to Bear Late US President’s Name
Krakow’s city council has renamed central square of
the Nowa Huta district to Ronald Reagan Pl. The
square was meant once to be the heart of a model
proletarian city that the communist regime had
envisioned to be built from scratch on a greenfield
site east of Krakow in the 1950s, next to giant
steelworks.

The EU’s Money Needed Elsewhere, Local Politicos
Said
Krakow’s municipality has failed this year
in its bid for over $17.5 million of the EU’s
structural funds to finance six infrastructure
projects in the city. The city hall sought the
grants for street modernization, drainage of a
fringe neighborhood, zoo improvement, construction
of a culture complex in the
Kazimierz downtown district, and creation
of city information system. As the Krakow projects
vied with 302 other presented by the rest of
municipalities in the
Malopolska province, whose capital as
well as the biggest city by far is Krakow, they fell
victim to regional pork barrel politics. The
province’s steering committee consisting of local
politicos resolved that needy backwoods areas should
be served first while the metropolis is rich enough
to take care of itself. So no Krakow municipality’s
project has qualified among the 24 successful
schemes that will tap an equivalent of some $58
million in the EU’s structural funds appropriated
for the Malopolska province this year. Nonetheless
some $10.5 million is to go to the construction of a
brand-new opera house in Krakow, the venture of the
Malopolska province’s government.

American Basketball Star Strengthens the Krakow Team
USA’s Shannon Johnson, 30-year-old WNBA warhorse, has
joined Krakow’s Wisla Can-Pack women’s basketball
team after a season with the San Antonio Silver Star
club in the States. She and Tangela Smith of
Sacramento Monarchs, another WNBA team, have been
signed up to help the Krakow side sail through Euro
League and Sharp Torell Basket League this season as
well as Poland’s premier league. Johnson is this
year’s Olympic gold medallist with the USA team and
the 2002 World Champion. She counted among the top
ten WNBA players in 1999 and 2000. As the WNBA games
end when the basketball season starts in Europe she
managed to play with Turkey’s Fenerbache Istanbul
team in the years 1999-2001, with Spain’s Valecia in
2002 and 2003, and in Russia’s Dinamo Moscow earlier
this year.

Architects Hold Their Feast in Krakow
Krakow’s 10th Biennial of Architecture has drawn
nearly 150 entries, from Poland and abroad, for its
two competitions, one to design a downtown museum,
the other to provide blueprint for a bridge-gallery
over Wisla river. Poland’s architectural couple
Marcin and Katarzyna Charciarek won the former
contest, while Germany’s Tobias Eckert and Sabine
Kukel prevailed in the latter. All entries are on
display at the
Bunkier Sztuki gallery at Szczepanski Pl.

Krakow to Attract Nearly 6.5 Million in 2004
This year the number of visitors to
Krakow will total some 6.4 million,
nearly a million more than in 2003–recent estimates
say. Foreigners make for 57 percent of the figure–51
percent in 2003–and over three-fourths of them
stay overnight or longer in the city. An
average tourist from abroad spends roughly $230 in
Krakow while a Polish one just $90 or so, and the
aggregate windfall for the city amounts to $700
million yearly.

Krakow’s Focal Square Is Half Done
Western half of Krakow’s huge
central Rynek Glowny square has undergone
$3.6-million refurbishment of its pavement, long
overdue. Over fifteen weeks till December 9 some
10,000 cubic meters of soil and mortar have been
removed, old underground installations replaced and
some new fixtures added, archeological excavations
done, and 9,000-square-meter pattern of pale and
dark granite slabs put in place. Similar renewal of
the square’s other half awaits the city next year.

Square Charity
150,000 raviolis with wild mushrooms and cabbage
filling, Polish traditional
Christmas Eve’s specialty, fed crowds
that turned up at Poland’s biggest Christmas party
on December 19. Also six tons of hot sauerkraut with
beans, 6,000 liters of wild mushroom soup with
noodles, and 50,000 rolls featured prominently this
year in the open-air free meal Krakow restaurateurs
organize every December amid the city’s central
Rynek Glowny square. The charity event was an
occasion, too, for distribution of warm clothes to
the needy.

Party to Remember
This year’s huge open-air New Year’s Eve party amid
Krakow’s central Rynek Glowny square is to cost
million zlotys (some $320,000), the bill split 50-50
between the
municipality and commercial sponsors. The
yearly party, Poland’s biggest, has repeatedly lured
up to 150,000 revelers to date but the record may be
easily broken this time. The four-hour show,
broadcast live by Poland’s biggest tv network,
starts at 9 p.m. and will feature Polish top pop
stars of various generations among other
attractions, to culminate in an eight-minute
fireworks show.